


Ghost Lights

by beestark



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 06:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3600552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beestark/pseuds/beestark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing he remembered how to be was a soldier, a man who moved to a plan, to a target, to an objective, to follow orders. He needed those now. He needed to have a place to go, some sort of... End. Hydra could be the answer. They were out there and, soon, they'd be coming for him again. He was a weapon in the open, lost, with no purpose and, just like his worst nightmare, they had him where they needed. Vulnerable. A valuable and vulnerable weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Lights

The soldier barely sleeps. It's not the floor that bothers him. His body doesn't take the hardness in concrete below his weight uninviting. But there's something past the level of his comprehension, something that tears at the seams of his mind when the sounds of the city are too unbearable. The first things that immediately come back to him are the memories of his life as a weapon, the ones that earn a physical response: the isolation in dark empty cells he spends days in, the excruciating pain each washing requires, the careful maintenance they keep of his arm. The winter soldier, the asset, can't sleep. So he sits at the hem of whatever building he chooses and watches over the city.  
  
This night he overlooks the Smithsonian, the grave of a past he doesn't recognize - one he's not entirely sure he should try to link to himself. Nothing is the same, not even the vessel. That too, with time, changed by force, by drugs, by metal carved into flesh... The soldier is not James Buchanan Barnes or Bucky. He's not even sure he is human. Yet, from time to time he returns, a cap in his head, the metal hand deep inside the pocket of a stolen jacket, and he waits, staring at his own eyes as though they could bring answers to unspoken questions. The biography by the side of his picture means nothing; no matter how many times he reads those words, even as he learns to recite them by heart, there's nothing beyond the print plastered on the glass. When he repeats his name or the date of his birth, to taste the unfamiliarity of it in his tongue, he almost wishes it's by long term memory rather than short. He knows those facts because he read them, because they are the only connection he has to whatever was left of his humanity. That and Steve.  
  
Each time he enters the museum, it's not his own eyes he avoids, but those linked to the hero of the exhibition. The man on the bridge, the very same one he fought in the helicarrier and later took out of the waters. The soldier, or rather, James, still wonders why he tried, why he resigned to being nearly punched to his death that day and not fighting back. Somehow, this man loved the idea of him, of his lost friend, in the image of someone who truly wasn't near that past self. 'Just a vessel', he thought to himself and looked away from the roof toward the skyline. It didn't hold starts, not this deep in the middle of city lights. 'But a vessel with a need of a plan'.  
  
The only thing he remembered how to be was a soldier, a man who moved to a plan, to a target, to an objective, to follow orders. He needed those now. He needed to have a place to go, some sort of... End. Hydra could be the answer. They were out there and, soon, they'd be coming for him again. He was a weapon in the open, lost, with no purpose and, just like his worst nightmare, they had him where they needed. Vulnerable. A valuable and vulnerable weapon.  
  
James closed his metal hand inside the pocket, moving in the dark toward somewhere he, above all, did not wish to go. Steve Rogers was a link to a past self he was not but, right now, it seemed like the only good option. He couldn't trust anyone, but Steve had faith in his best friend, and that was close enough. So he let himself be found...

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at a Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier story from Bucky's POV.  
> I'll be adding chapters as it develops. Might also change POV for a couple of small pieces.
> 
> Feedback and constructive criticism would be very much appreciated.  
> Thank you!


End file.
